Top 10 facts about you never knew about rum

Sailors stopped receiving daily rum rations in 1970

TODAY is the 45th anniversary of Black Tot Day, the name given to July 31, 1970 when sailors in the Royal Navy ceased to be given their daily rum ration.

1. The tradition of issuing sailors with rum dated back to 1655 when Jamaican rum replaced brandy as the drink of choice for the Royal Navy.

2. Jamaica had just been captured from the Spanish and rum was a cheap and plentiful by-product of their sugar-refining processes.

3. The rum ration was issued daily at noon and 5pm or 6pm with a call of “Up spirits!”

4. More than 80 per cent of the world’s rum still comes from the Caribbean.

5. “There’s rummer things than women in this world,” (Dickens, Pickwick Papers).

6. “Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.” (Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary).

7. In 1740 the English Navy ordered the rum ration be diluted because of the drunkenness it caused...

8. ...Indeed it’s believed that more sailors died by falling from the rigging drunk than were killed in battle.

9. The drink called rum was first seen in English in 1654. The Jamaicans also called it “kill devil”.

10. “There’s nought no doubt so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.” (Lord Byron).